Teens post ‘Am I ugly?’ videos on YouTube

A growing number of tweens and teens, mainly girls, are posting videos on YouTube asking commenters if they’re ugly, according to Jezebel.

Type ‘Am I ugly?’ or ‘Am I pretty’ into the YouTube search box and dozens of videos pop up, including one of an 11-year-old girl who poses for the camera, twirling her shoulders, smiling big, and pulling her long hair out of a pony tail.

“Hi guys,” she says. “I was doing a video because I’m bored and stuff. Do you guys think I’m pretty?”

“If you think I’m pretty comment down there,” she adds, pointing to the bottom of the screen. “I really don’t care but I just want you guys’s opinion.”

It’s heartbreaking to watch these young vulnerable kids share their most personal insecurities. One skinny 12-year-old girl says in a video, “I think I’m ugly and fat…so I just want to know what you think.”

And while some commenters tell the girls that they’re beautiful, many call them ugly and use lewd language. The cavalier meanness is heartbreaking.

“All black people look the same,” one commenter says to an African American girl who posts an “Am I ugly?” video.

“Just the fact that u did this video makes u ugly. But u were ugly already,” a viewer writes to a 14-year-old girl.

YouTube is the last place these kids should be going to for a confidence boost; the site is bound to make them only feel worse. A 12-year-old isn’t mature enough to deal with vicious remarks made by their mean-spirited peers and sick-minded Internet trolls, hiding behind the anonymity of the Internet. Adolescence is dark and savage and when teenagers put themselves up on the Internet it only magnifies the experience.

I only wish the online video site more closely monitored kids’ use. The site says it doesn’t allow kids under age 13 to upload videos so then why is there a video of an 11-year-old girl asking the world if she’s ugly? Where are this girl’s parents? Something is wrong with this picture.